Thank you for giving some perspective on how long basic training roughly takes.
If we are talking months, even should Ukraine speed up the process a bit, then i think it is fair to assume that a few days for travel don’t make a significant difference. Especially should there be other advantages to training in existing facilities.
I got a bit carried away, but i wanted to explain what being a soldier is like, and why it takes so much time.
you cant just put on camo and go somewhere with a rifle, that will end up in chaos. yes, there is like underground resistance. but those people have had training as well, it was on the job training.
keep in mind i was just a lowly rank that did 9 months. beware that that counts as a joke among real soldiers, but the basic training is not a fun experience for anybody. I hope I didnt romanticise anything, or say something stupid, so real soldiers are not mad at me.
I was navy. I was the guy that guards ships, but basic training was infantry. I was trained with:
pistole p8 (usp h&k)
grenade pistol
g36 rifle
g3 machine gun
Tank destroying waepon Panzerfaust 3
Hand grenade
(Marinesicherungsbattailion 1, falls es jemand wissen will, plön 2003)
I would say there is a couple of things people dont get. Being a soldier is a thing you have to learn. its not about shooting people. thats only the sensational thing.
arriving there and getting to know things is very scary. i only did it because i was forced, and didnt manage to say no.
you need to learn military life. ranks, rights, duties, marching, listening, reporting, all that formal stuff.
you need to have a certain kind of fitness. they yell at you a lot, you jump a lot, you run a lot, you make a lot of push ups. its al lot of huffing and puffing, sweating, clamping you teeth together.
you need to learn your equipment.
you need to learn how to clean things. I shit you not. I learned to clean there.
you need to learn how to walk with heavy things on your back. one guy died from a neighbouring Inspection, he had a heart failure. 5 km introduction march in week 4 or something. huge scandal, things were a lot quieter after that. he was also like 20 years old. nobody knew about his heart condition. it was also one of the hottest summers, 2003.
you need to learn to help your comrades. you will have fights with them, you will have bullies, you will have to defend yourself, you will have to learn how to get away with things, you will have to learn all kinds of psyscho stuff.
you need to learn some form of minor profession that you can do. be it cooking, driving a truck, building fortifications, or mechanics (thats what the special training is for, after your basic training, I idnt do that, I had guard duty in a mission called enduring freedom)
you need to learn your civil rights because NATO
you need like 75 kilos of personal items. equipment, clothing, goddamn everything, you even get underwear and pyjamas, outfitting alone takes a week, all included. Helmet, Helmet cover, formal uniform, shirts, knive, gasmask, raingear, sewing kit, rifle cleaning kit, water flask, tent gear, sleeping gear, cooking utensils LOTS of stuff. LOTS.
you need to sort out all the problems you have at home. people at home will not understant what ist like. youre homesick, your girlfriend is acting strange, you have to calm down a raging alcoholic, before an officer decides that he has to do something
(could have ended in jail time, dude was 1,95 tall, we had to bind him on his bunk, he wanted to kill our non com officer. maybe not kill, but bash his brains in, it was new years eve, everybody was drunk. we were 7 people. of course everybody knew about it the next day, but nobody talked about it, no push ups, no yelling, nothing at all. other non com asked me if i was fit for guarding, I looked this bad. I had no choice but to say yes. i was puking my guts out while on duty, two times. tall guy was ash grey in the face, non com knew that we knew that he made tall guy drunk for fun).
11.you will get medically checked from top to bottom, you go to the dentist, they look at your penis, they look into your nose, you get a medical record attached and what have you. you get glasses, you get everything.
you go to medical course to get a certification to help wounded poeple, like, the thing for drivers license, but more hours.
well, all kinds of things has to be done.
maybe its the russian thing to just show up, hang around in the barracks, get a rifle and a uniform and then its of to the battle zone.
But Nato will do things differently, by the books, everything has to be organized. it takes a lot of time, i tried to illustrate why that is. there also was lots of stuff about military tradidion, a bit of valour and propanganda shite, maybe you can cut that out.
maybe you wont have to go home in between, and will have no free time and no free days, so you can condense the whole thing, I spent a lot of time trying to stay awake in school, like, a classroom. that was torture.
I guess its also different for people that are not young anymore and green behind the ears like we were. we spend a lot of time “characterbuilding”, like, older guys talking to younger guys, you know.
also, there are a couple of rules that really impressed me, and i doubt it will be much different in a different nato army:
if you have a medical note, people cant touch you. Doctor note overules everything.
your boss needs to do a pushup when they want you to do a push up
food and water is holy; no matter what, if there is no other emergency, soldiers have to be fed. you can be tired, overworked, stressed out. full of mud in a fox hole - but you have to have a warm meal somehow, if not, somebody is gonna have a very bad day.
unwritten rule: everybody will respect you for trying and not giving up. if you fail but dont give in, people will close an eye an give you a shove, so you can cross the finish line.
A thing I learned:
If somebody is yelling at you, yell back.
Dont do this if you really have done something wrong, and are dressed down because there is a sound reason why you get chewed out.
But if you are doing a task, and an a hole is trying do dominate you, then yell back, be energetic, professional but not confrontational, do everything they say, stop yelling if they tell you, be a good soldier while doing it. Yell without feelings. be matter of fact.
But yell back with all you got, while stripping your rifle or crawling over obstacles. It will you keep focused, and the guy doing the yelling will stop doing it to you, since he will feel like a dumbass, because everybody is watching, and the only thing he can do is to order you to stop yelling, but then he is the weak one, since he is allowed to yell, but cant take it if you yell back to confirm his orders.
Thank you for giving some perspective on how long basic training roughly takes.
If we are talking months, even should Ukraine speed up the process a bit, then i think it is fair to assume that a few days for travel don’t make a significant difference. Especially should there be other advantages to training in existing facilities.
I got a bit carried away, but i wanted to explain what being a soldier is like, and why it takes so much time.
you cant just put on camo and go somewhere with a rifle, that will end up in chaos. yes, there is like underground resistance. but those people have had training as well, it was on the job training.
keep in mind i was just a lowly rank that did 9 months. beware that that counts as a joke among real soldiers, but the basic training is not a fun experience for anybody. I hope I didnt romanticise anything, or say something stupid, so real soldiers are not mad at me.
I was navy. I was the guy that guards ships, but basic training was infantry. I was trained with:
pistole p8 (usp h&k) grenade pistol g36 rifle g3 machine gun Tank destroying waepon Panzerfaust 3 Hand grenade
(Marinesicherungsbattailion 1, falls es jemand wissen will, plön 2003)
I would say there is a couple of things people dont get. Being a soldier is a thing you have to learn. its not about shooting people. thats only the sensational thing.
arriving there and getting to know things is very scary. i only did it because i was forced, and didnt manage to say no.
you need to learn military life. ranks, rights, duties, marching, listening, reporting, all that formal stuff.
you need to have a certain kind of fitness. they yell at you a lot, you jump a lot, you run a lot, you make a lot of push ups. its al lot of huffing and puffing, sweating, clamping you teeth together.
you need to learn your equipment.
you need to learn how to clean things. I shit you not. I learned to clean there.
you need to learn how to walk with heavy things on your back. one guy died from a neighbouring Inspection, he had a heart failure. 5 km introduction march in week 4 or something. huge scandal, things were a lot quieter after that. he was also like 20 years old. nobody knew about his heart condition. it was also one of the hottest summers, 2003.
you need to learn to help your comrades. you will have fights with them, you will have bullies, you will have to defend yourself, you will have to learn how to get away with things, you will have to learn all kinds of psyscho stuff.
you need to learn some form of minor profession that you can do. be it cooking, driving a truck, building fortifications, or mechanics (thats what the special training is for, after your basic training, I idnt do that, I had guard duty in a mission called enduring freedom)
you need to learn your civil rights because NATO
you need like 75 kilos of personal items. equipment, clothing, goddamn everything, you even get underwear and pyjamas, outfitting alone takes a week, all included. Helmet, Helmet cover, formal uniform, shirts, knive, gasmask, raingear, sewing kit, rifle cleaning kit, water flask, tent gear, sleeping gear, cooking utensils LOTS of stuff. LOTS.
you need to sort out all the problems you have at home. people at home will not understant what ist like. youre homesick, your girlfriend is acting strange, you have to calm down a raging alcoholic, before an officer decides that he has to do something
(could have ended in jail time, dude was 1,95 tall, we had to bind him on his bunk, he wanted to kill our non com officer. maybe not kill, but bash his brains in, it was new years eve, everybody was drunk. we were 7 people. of course everybody knew about it the next day, but nobody talked about it, no push ups, no yelling, nothing at all. other non com asked me if i was fit for guarding, I looked this bad. I had no choice but to say yes. i was puking my guts out while on duty, two times. tall guy was ash grey in the face, non com knew that we knew that he made tall guy drunk for fun).
11.you will get medically checked from top to bottom, you go to the dentist, they look at your penis, they look into your nose, you get a medical record attached and what have you. you get glasses, you get everything.
you go to medical course to get a certification to help wounded poeple, like, the thing for drivers license, but more hours.
well, all kinds of things has to be done.
maybe its the russian thing to just show up, hang around in the barracks, get a rifle and a uniform and then its of to the battle zone.
But Nato will do things differently, by the books, everything has to be organized. it takes a lot of time, i tried to illustrate why that is. there also was lots of stuff about military tradidion, a bit of valour and propanganda shite, maybe you can cut that out.
maybe you wont have to go home in between, and will have no free time and no free days, so you can condense the whole thing, I spent a lot of time trying to stay awake in school, like, a classroom. that was torture.
I guess its also different for people that are not young anymore and green behind the ears like we were. we spend a lot of time “characterbuilding”, like, older guys talking to younger guys, you know.
also, there are a couple of rules that really impressed me, and i doubt it will be much different in a different nato army:
if you have a medical note, people cant touch you. Doctor note overules everything.
your boss needs to do a pushup when they want you to do a push up
food and water is holy; no matter what, if there is no other emergency, soldiers have to be fed. you can be tired, overworked, stressed out. full of mud in a fox hole - but you have to have a warm meal somehow, if not, somebody is gonna have a very bad day.
unwritten rule: everybody will respect you for trying and not giving up. if you fail but dont give in, people will close an eye an give you a shove, so you can cross the finish line.
A thing I learned:
If somebody is yelling at you, yell back.
Dont do this if you really have done something wrong, and are dressed down because there is a sound reason why you get chewed out.
But if you are doing a task, and an a hole is trying do dominate you, then yell back, be energetic, professional but not confrontational, do everything they say, stop yelling if they tell you, be a good soldier while doing it. Yell without feelings. be matter of fact.
But yell back with all you got, while stripping your rifle or crawling over obstacles. It will you keep focused, and the guy doing the yelling will stop doing it to you, since he will feel like a dumbass, because everybody is watching, and the only thing he can do is to order you to stop yelling, but then he is the weak one, since he is allowed to yell, but cant take it if you yell back to confirm his orders.
Thanks for sharing your experience, i assume most like me will have little to none.